I Wanna Ruin Our Friendship
by amieofabc
Summary: Based on a playlist. Mac is finally out and Dennis is interested. Rating for content in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

It wasn't just saying the words out loud, it was biting back the urge to immediately retract them. He'd said them to himself though he wasn't sure if he believed them fully then. He felt sure now, maybe it was the success the bar had been enjoying lately or that the apartment was almost done and he was about to go back to living with Dennis, just Dennis, but either way, he didn't feel God's wrath hanging over him quite so heavily anymore. Mac was gay. Maybe he wasn't ready to tell the gang yet, but he wasn't going to lie to himself anymore.

He smiled to himself, popping another peanut from the bowl on the bar into his mouth. There was a kernel of excited warmth in his stomach unfurling slowly as he wondered who he would end up telling first. His parents were out of the question for now. He wasn't ready for something so big and fragile to be met with a cigarette cough or a slow blink that somehow pushed him further away from the exact closeness he'd been craving. Someday, though, he would have to tell them. Did it matter that his father had had sex with men himself? He almost gagged at the thought, but he was realizing that that had more to do with it being his DAD than it being gay. Maybe Luther would end up understanding. It was a ridiculous thought, but stranger things could happen, he guessed.

Dennis was somehow the most and least likely candidate, and that was as hard to admit as the news itself. They were blood brothers, why shouldn't he be the first to know? They told each other everything, shared everything. They'd spent twenty years together.

And yet.

Maybe that was the crux of the fear, that something they'd spent so long building could be destroyed if Mac went about this the wrong way. He glanced over at Dennis, who was slicing limes and bickering with Dee. Would he care? He'd insinuated in the past that he didn't, hell, he'd done his fair share of flirting at Mac, but would that matter when the truth came out in the open without being reversed? Would he decide it was too weird to live with a gay man? Mac himself would've said so just six or seven months ago. A random gay man, sure, but what if their situations were reversed? Would it be too weird to live with Dennis if he were gay? A flutter, not unfamiliar but unwelcome, erupted in Mac's chest at the thought. No, he supposed, he wouldn't have objected to that at all.

The rest of the gang, well, they could take it or leave it. He knew they didn't care and if they did they could get over it. He didn't have to live with any of them, at least not for much longer. Dennis was tougher to figure out though, always had been.

As it turns out, nothing pushes you out of the closet quite like the rush of winning ten thousand dollars. He'd eagerly signed the paper and, well, he'd never been one to waste a perfectly good moment. Dennis was still nagging at the back of his head, the way he'd said "You can go back in, you got your money." Like he was already bitter about it. And that had to just be that he'd lost the argument about the ticket, but Mac couldn't shake the idea that Dennis was holding the way he'd gone back into the closet after the cruise against him. He hadn't even realized that Dennis was upset about it.

Back at Dee's apartment, he sprawled out over the couch and put on Predator, just to calm his nerves. Dennis got home halfway through, and Mac gave him a toothy grin. "Ten thousand bucks, how cool is that?"

Dennis scratched at the back of his neck. "Yeah, we uh-" he glanced up sheepishly, "We used your ticket to pay for the attorneys, it was Frank's idea."

Mac's face dropped. "Oh."

"Yeah, it's just that you were the one who asked for the mediation so it seemed fair-"

"No, yeah, sure," Mac said, nodding stiffly. "How much is left over?"

"Fourteen." He wasn't making eye contact.

"Hundred?"

"No, total. Fourteen dollars." He stood awkwardly, rocking back on his heels and watching Mac's face. "I probably should've waited until tomorrow, huh?"

Mac swallowed. "Yeah, maybe." He let his eyes drift out of focus, glazing over the frozen image on the tv screen. "I dunno though, I hadn't made any plans for the money so it's not like I'm really losing out on anything."

Dennis stepped forward and settled on the armrest of the couch, not quite in Mac's space. "So, you aren't upset that you came out over less than twenty bucks?"

Was that what he'd been worried about? That Mac would slink back into the closet because he'd lost the money? It was a fair suspicion, he supposed, but it stung a little now. "No, Dennis, I came out because I needed to. The money just kind of sped things along, I think. And I'll really fucking miss it, but I meant it when I said I was out now."

Dennis nodded slightly as he listened, and smiled, just barely. "Well, good," he said at last, "That shit was getting pretty old."

Mac chuckled. "Yeah, no kidding."


	2. Chapter 2

There wasn't any change in how Dennis treated Mac, not at first. They still bickered and had movie nights and ganged up on Dee. The change came when it came time for their monthly dinner and Dennis suggested a fucking gay bar.

"Jesus Christ dude, just because I'm out now-"

"You aren't listening," Dennis hushed him, "Look, you can back out if you want to, I just thought you might want a fun night out, that's all." God, like he didn't know exactly what he was doing, phrasing that innocently as a challenge.

"I can get that on my own," Mac grumbled, "You don't have to pander to me."

Dennis folded his arms over his chest. "Did it occur to you that I want to go too?"

It was the last thing that had ever occurred to Mac, and his reply came out as a spluttering of disjointed sentence fragments until he could re-order his entire world view. "Why the fuck would you want to come to a gay bar with me?" His mind was right on the button but he couldn't get himself to push it. "I mean, are you-"

"No." Dennis waved the idea aside with a breezy motion of his hand. "But my blood brother is, and these dinners are about both of us."

"Oh." His heart was still pounding in his throat and, he realized, his palms were sweating. "Well fine, but don't jam me up if I find someone hot there. And don't lead anyone on just because you can."

Dennis's mouth tightened into a thin line and quirked up crookedly. "Can't promise anything."

Mac huffed out a short breath. "Fine. I'll change."

The bar wasn't at all what Mac had pictured, in fact it looked a lot like a sports bar if sports bars hired solely fit, shirtless men as wait staff. The Phillies were on across the screens of four separate tv's and they had good beer. Mac stayed quiet as he sipped his, watching Dennis as he surveyed the room. "What do you think?" he asked, leaning into Mac's space.

"I think two beers isn't much of a dinner." Mac said, curtly skirting the question.

"Well they do have food, you know."

"This stuff is all _carbs._ "

"So?"

Mac rolled his eyes. "So you won't eat any of it and I'll feel like a fat ass eating fries in front of you, and I told you we didn't have to come here so I'll feel like an idiot." He didn't sound as nonchalant as he'd hoped.

Dennis huffed out an exasperated breath. "If I promise to share the fries or the potato skins or whatever fried crap you want to get, will you please try to enjoy the night?"

"If you're gonna get all irritated about it—"

"Then let's go somewhere else, huh?" He was challenging Mac again, daring him to up the ante, and Mac still couldn't fathom why. Instead of taking the bait, he signaled over a waiter, a lean, hairless man in dark jeans, and ordered sliders.

"I'm happy to go somewhere else," he said as cordially as he could manage, "But let's not go on an empty stomach."

"Somewhere else" ended up being a full-on gay club by Mac's doing. If Dennis wanted a game of chicken, well, he could have it. This was Mac's territory. He even let himself get separated from Dennis to dance on his own, and when a muscular, blue-eyed man sidled up to him to offer him a drink, he didn't turn it down, didn't say he was there with someone already.

An hour in, though, he realized he couldn't see Dennis anymore, not even out of his peripheral. He stood up, giving a dismissive wave to the man next to him, and meandered into the gyrating clump of people at the center of the room and would have gasped aloud if he'd been able to hear it over the music.

Dennis was there, in the center of it all, with his head tilted back and the lights playing over the pale skin of his torso. He was shirtless, gleaming with a thin sheen of sweat, like—

Like a golden god.

The flutter in Mac's chest was back, and he let it grow, trying to breathe steadily as he watched Dennis. When Dennis had tried stripping it had felt like this, that same anxious excitement, the same drifting thoughts. Mac wasn't the only one paying attention, either, Dennis was attracting stares from six or seven men around him, and though he didn't seem as if he noticed, Mac knew better, knew he was basking in it. He felt agitated for some reason. It wasn't like Dennis was keeping him from dancing or drinking, there was no reason he couldn't have his own night without his friend.

This was _their_ monthly dinner though, and Dennis had spent all of it trying to make some kind of point about how accepting he was of Mac and Mac's lifestyle and Mac being his _gay_ friend, and this was exactly the kind of thing Mac had stayed in the closet to avoid, this cloying, pandering bullshit leaking into their friendship, making Dennis insist that Mac pick the place for dinner like they were on some kind of date—

Oh.

God, was that was this test was about? To see if Mac was attracted to him like he was one more candidate to be D.E.N.N.I.S'ed? As the thought came crashing into his head, Dennis turned, just slightly, and found Mac's face, grinning, and that smug look was too much. He stalked forward with his jaw set, ready to punch his lights out.

It surprised him as much as it did Dennis when he took his friend's face in his hands and pressed his lips to his.

Dennis pulled away, sputtering "What in the hell, man?"

"If you're gonna push me like this you gotta be prepared for when you go too far," Mac seethed. "Whatever version of your system this is, congrats, I'm attracted to you and all, but you know goddamn well you're just playing me and you don't do that to your blood brother."

Dennis' eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "You're attracted to me?"

Mac's eyes widened in disbelief. "Don't fucking do this. There's no way you didn't know after your little stripper scheme." He saw the shadow of Dennis' adam's apple bob in his throat. "We should probably go somewhere quieter if you're really gonna do this right now."

"What exactly am I doing?"

Mac leaned back in towards him, letting his voice drop to a growl. "Just put your damn shirt back on so we can get out of here."

Outside, the air was cooler and swimming with exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke, but it felt like an improvement from the cramped sweatiness of the club. Dennis came stumbling after Mac, tugging the hem of his shirt back down. "I'm not trying to use the system on you," he said straightaway. "I mean maybe I wanted to see where our boundaries are now, but I wasn't ever gonna—"

"Hold on, what do you mean our 'boundaries'?"

Dennis shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, staring pointedly at the sidewalk. "You're right," he admitted, "I knew you were attracted to me. And I honestly kind of wanted to see what it would take to get you to act on it. If you would risk ruining our friendship."

A thin, burning thread of anger wound its way around Mac's windpipe, choking his voice into a rasp. " _I'm_ the one ruining our friendship? You force me into some fucked up gay bar date with my straight best friend and I'm the one ruining things because I took some of the bait?"

"I'm not your straight friend," Dennis said quietly.

"You said earlier—"

"I'm not gay," he shot back. "But I've known I was bi for a long time now."

Mac felt his lips moving, but no sound came out, like he was a fish gasping for oxygen. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?" he asked at last.

Dennis still hadn't looked at him. "I thought it might get your hopes up. I wasn't ready for you to be coming on to me or for it to be a thing-"

"So you just made my coming out into a thing."

Dennis let out a long breath, too close to a sigh. "You kissed me." It wasn't an accusation, just stating a fact, but it pricked at Mac, made him feel defensive, like a bird puffing up its feathers.

"Well shit, did I ruin everything?"

Dennis took a small step towards him. "Yeah, I think so. I can't gloss over that one."

Mac's heart thudded. Dennis had to be kidding. "So what, we're not friends now? Because I kissed you once?" He was trying to sound indignant but it came out as a strange, sad sound.

Dennis came yet closer and traced a finger down Mac's jawline. "I don't know what we are now," he murmured, "but I think it's time we called it more than friends."

He kissed him, softly, outside, where people could see, and his warmth seeped into Mac's chest as his heart beat out a cheer.


	3. Chapter 3

When they broke apart from each other, Dennis whipped out his phone and began texting frantically. Mac shook himself, feeling dizzy. "Who are you-"

"Dee," Dennis said breathlessly, "Gotta make sure she's not in the apartment."

"What—why?"

Dennis paused, his eyebrows crinkling together. "What do you mean, why? I thought this was kind of heading in a certain direction."

Well if Mac had been dizzy before he was faint now. "Oh. Um. I—"

"If you want to, I mean, I just thought…" he trailed off, knowing the meaning was clear, knowing Mac had bit back more than he ever had for his sake, giving him permission to rush forward.

"Yeah no, I—I want to." Mac breathed, beaming over at him.

Dennis fumbled slightly with the keys when they reached the door, and Mac wondered if his hands had ever shaken like that before sex with anyone else. He couldn't dwell on it long before Dennis shut the door behind them and pinned him to it, breath hot on Mac's neck and one of his hands gripping his hip, almost hard enough to bruise. He was sucking at the juncture of Mac's neck and his shoulder, drawing up blood to mark him, and Mac groaned softly at the thought, reaching for the small of Dennis' back to pull him closer. Dennis moved off his neck and stared at him for a moment, lips parted, pupils blown wide before he moved to kiss him again, darting his tongue into Mac's waiting mouth. Without breaking apart, they stumbled backwards until Mac's knees buckled onto the couch, Dennis straddled over his legs.

He needed a second to take that much in.

He pushed Dennis back, gently, and leaned back into the couch. Dennis' ears were blushing bright red, and he was panting, the sky-blue of his eyes trained on Mac's. "You okay?" he murmured.

Mac swallowed. "Yeah. Yeah, I just needed a second to make sure you were, you know," he gestured vaguely at Dennis' torso, "still here."

Dennis quirked an eyebrow upwards. "Am I sometimes not?"

Mac quickly glanced downwards, feeling the redness creeping into his face. "I just meant I didn't think this would really happen." He watched Dennis tilt his head, just slightly, saw the glint in his eyes turn darker, more predatory, as Dennis swooped back into his space, his lips brushing the shell of Mac's ear.

"Did you fantasize about me, baby boy?" he whispered, and Mac shuddered. "Did you stay up at night with your cock in your hand thinking of me?" Mac bit his lip, hard, his heart racing. He knew this was part of Dennis' thing, his need to be praised in whatever he did, but _fuck_. "Tell me what you did when you thought about me, Mac."

Mac struggled to think clearly, to sort through the images floating through his brain and arrange them into words. "The first time was when we were in high school, senior year. We went swimming together and afterwards we rinsed off together, I think it was the first time I saw you naked. And that night—" he swallowed again, trying to coat his dry throat as Dennis resumed his ministrations on his neck. "That night I imagined you, dripping wet, but in my room, and I remember wanting—" Dennis slid a hand under his shirt, his fingertips tracing over the outlines of his torso, "I just felt so much wanting, so much pull towards you, wanting to know what your skin felt like, what your mouth tasted like, what sounds you made." He had to stop there, Dennis' thumb was sliding over a nipple and he smiled, thin-lipped, like a serpent, as he tugged at the hem of Mac's shirt. Mac obliged him, lifting up his arms, and let out a breathless sound, half-sigh, half-chuckle, when Dennis did the same. They'd seen each other shirtless dozens, hundreds of times, but Mac had never let himself stare so wantonly like this.

"What did you want to do to me, Mac?" Dennis punctuated the question with a small, suggestive thrust of his hips, grinding their crotches together for the briefest of seconds, and in his dizziness, Mac answered in a harsh burst.

"I wanted to fuck your mouth."

The snake-smile grew wider, and Dennis' hand slithered downward, parting Mac's legs, palming at his crotch. "Show me," he whispered, "show me how bad you want me."

He felt so wonderfully helpless, lightheaded and whimpering for Dennis, feeling his cock harden. Dennis moved off of him and sank to the floor, working at his pants and yanking them down, running a feather-light hand up Mac's shaft and looking at him with a question in his face.

"Dennis—" Mac whispered, brokenly, "Please."

Slowly, Dennis complied, licking a thick stripe onto his palm and pulling Mac's boxers down as deftly as he could manage and stroking him to complete hardness. He pressed his lips to the insides of Mac's thighs, leaving marks like the one on Mac's neck and licking further up, teasing him. When he took Mac into the heated wetness of his mouth at last, he groaned quietly, lips inching further as his tongue ran over the underside.

Mac's knuckles whitened as he gripped the couch cushion under him in a desperate bid to not reach for Dennis' hair, a bid he lost when Dennis abruptly bobbed his head forward, swallowing Mac almost to the hilt, and he shoved his fist into the soft pile of curls, hissing out his breath. To his surprise, Dennis moaned loudly and clutched at his knee, gripping hard. He pulled off of Mac, fumbling with his own pants and kicking them off. He glanced up at Mac, hair mussed, lips red, and flushed like some kind of angel of arousal. "If you're gonna fuck my mouth," he rasped, "Get to it soon."

Mac didn't need telling twice, threading Dennis' hair around his fingers and thrusting forward, slowly, into his throat. He heard Dennis gag and worried for a split second before the grip on his knee came back.

He let go of his hair when he felt his stomach tighten and moaned, "I'm close, Dennis, fuck—" just in time for him to pull away.

He sagged, boneless, into the couch, panting. Dennis was still between his thighs and, as his senses began to return, Mac realized he was rutting against Mac's leg, his hips stuttering. "Dude, let me take care of that," he offered, but Dennis simply clutched at his hand, groaning loudly as he finally came, collapsing next to Mac on the couch.

"So." he said, still breathless.

"So." Dennis had his head tilted back, his fingers still curled around Mac's hand. "Did that live up to your fantasy?"

Mac laughed, deeply, from his belly. "Yeah. Five star rating and all." He reached a thumb over to brush at Dennis' cheeks, where his mascara had streaked slightly.

"Goddamn right," Dennis smirked.

Later, after they'd showered and Dennis had fallen asleep, Mac stared at the reach of his shoulder blades, still feeling a detached sense of non-belief that what had just happened was real. Under the comforting warmth of Dennis' closeness, a small, icy pit of doubt sat, feeling like the words "separate entirely", like his father's disappointed face, like a crucifix. He tried to shove it back away, but that was useless. It never really left. His heart ached against his ribcage, fluttering with hope, but the pit sank and spread, and he fell asleep wondering if Dennis would even acknowledge what had happened in the morning.


	4. Chapter 4

When Dennis woke up the next morning, Mac was clenched in on himself in what looked like an attempt to out-maneuver Dee's sprawling. He stood slowly, feeling the sting in his knees from where carpet had rubbed into them last night, and plucked a cigarette out of the pack in Dee's purse. She was still buying them despite getting cut off from Dennis' tip money; he wondered what she was giving up to replace that. He hadn't smoked daily in a long time, it was something he did when he felt out of control. It felt familiar and he relished knowing he could still quit whenever he wanted. He just had that much willpower. On his third drag, his phone buzzed with a text from a North Dakota number and he had to wonder if there was anything he wanted to see less right now. Goddammit, couldn't he deal with one sexual mistake at a time? He shoved the phone back into his jeans without reading the text. One mistake at a time. Right. He had to remember, as smoked swirled around his throat, that he was getting better at this, that he was learning how to keep himself from getting overwhelmed so quickly. Progress.

Mac wouldn't think what had happened last night was a mistake, and that's what would make this whole thing such a pain in the ass. The Mac-ness of it all. Mac's big puppy eyes full of trust, Mac's fidgeting hands tapping together nervously, Mac's voice hovering around a question he couldn't make himself ask. You couldn't just throw him away like any other one-night stand. You couldn't break him.

He choked on his next inhale when too much heat flooded his chest.

Was he getting careless? There was a time in his life where Mac kissing him would've meant one of them stayed at Charlie's for the night. It certainly wouldn't have ended with Mac's dick in his mouth. Why had he let it go so far? He tossed the butt of the cigarette onto the sidewalk and crushed it under his heel. He already knew the answer to that.

He didn't put off getting to the bar. There was no point, Mac would bring it up first no matter what. He even made himself ignore the swoop in his stomach when the door swung open, staring determinedly at the rag he was wiping down the counter with. "Did you take the bus?" he asked, needing to be the one to break the silence.

"Well I wasn't gonna ride with Dee." Mac slid onto the stool across from Dennis, his fingers already tapping an anxious rhythm on the bar top. "How's your jaw?"

He was already grinning like he'd made a clever in-joke, and Dennis' grip on the rag tightened.

"Not like that was the first cock I sucked." he said bluntly.

Mac's face fell in an instant because Christ, he was too easy. Of course he thought last night was Dennis' first time with a man. Of course he thought he was special. "Oh," he said quietly.

He didn't try to approach Dennis again for the rest of they except to ask for a ride home, which he agreed to. He isn't that heartless. That doesn't stop the air in the car from feeling thick and unbreathable. Mac broke through it first like Dennis knew he would. "So last night," he began, and Dennis felt his fingers curl around the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened, "Are you like-like okay with what happened?"

"Don't worry about it." He's trying not to sound cold, really, but it's such a default setting now.

"That's not an answer," Mac said softly, staring down at his hands. "I know you don't like talking about this stuff but you kind of initiated, you know…the banging, so-"

"We did not bang."

"God, whatever you want to call it then," he said, exasperated. "It's just that this thing where you're not there in the morning and then we don't talk all day is not what I signed up for."

"Didn't realize giving someone a blow job meant I was signing them up for something." He doesn't have to look over to know that Mac is opening and closing his mouth like a beached fish right now, struggling for a comeback.

"You were the one who called us more than friends!" he yelped, his voice pitching upwards sharply. "What was I supposed to think about that?"

"I meant friends don't blow each other, Mac, Christ." He swallowed back something that felt like bile. "I meant we could have a friends with benefits type of thing." God help him, it was so hard to lie to Mac. So hard to keep the words in his mouth from turning to lead when faced with the sheer light that came off of him. "And I won't apologize because you took that too seriously." He swerved into a spot outside of Dee's apartment building and unbuckled his seatbelt.

"I didn't take it too seriously." And out of nowhere Mac's voice was small and wounded, like the moment he found out his father had been writing to him after all. "I didn't. You kissed me. And we-we've known each other for more than twenty years, Dennis, I know you, and you don't get to do this to me." His eyes were shining thick with tears he was unsuccessfully blinking back.

Dennis' tongue turned to ash.

"It just-it wasn't just sex for me, okay?" Mac blurted, wiping his eyes fiercely with the back of his hand. "And I know you knew that."

Dennis just looked at him for several long seconds, trying to breathe slowly, trying to force enough oxygen into his lungs to crowd out the roiling nausea in his stomach. "I don't want you for the right reasons," he finally said, carefully.

"What?"

"Mac, you know me. You're right. You know that I-" he swallowed, trying to maneuver the words around a dry throat. "That this shit is hard for me. I don't know what the hell I feel about you, but I know I feel it because you're so goddamn devoted."

Mac's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

And fuck, how to explain it? How to tell a man you need him because he says your name like a prayer, because even when you're on your knees you know he's worshipping you, because you crave the satisfaction of knowing you beat his Catholic God in the fight for his love?

Is it really love if you only feel it because the other person is the only one who'll buy your own bullshit?

"I had to act out the second I knew you were attracted to me," he forced out at last, "Because I wanted to have you in a way no one else could. Because if you're gay and attracted to me I can't let anyone else be with you." His hands were trembling and he wanted nothing more than to go bolting away, far away, maybe as far as North Dakota because he sure as hell couldn't fix things here. "Because no matter how much I know it isn't true, I-I need to believe that I'm still a god to someone, and you look at me like a god." He stared into Mac's face, trying desperately to read it, but the silence stretched too long and he swung the car door open, striding towards the building entrance while Mac jogged after him and tugged at his arm.

"Dennis, just wait-" On reflex, Dennis yanked his arm away, but he forced himself to stop walking away. "I don't know what we are, okay? And it's alright that you don't either, I don't care. I just need to know that what happened last night wasn't just you, you know-"

"Being Dennis," he muttered darkly.

Mac wrapped a hand over his shoulder. "You can be kind of an asshole to the people you sleep with. I know that. I went ahead anyway because it meant a lot to me, getting to connect with you like that, but you can't screw me over."

Dennis clenched his fist, willing himself not to shove Mac's hand away. "I don't want to. Christ, Mac, I know you and I are different, but I'm-" Selfish? Vain? The product of fucking Frank Reynolds?

Broken?

"I don't know how to be with someone I care about," he whispered.

Mac's hand shifted between his shoulder blades and pulled him into his chest, holding him there, steady, rubbing small circles onto his back. "We made it for the last twenty years, dude," the voice at his ear rumbled, "One blowjob isn't gonna change that now."


End file.
